


Peppercorn

by anticlockwise (Iris_C)



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Ba Sing Se, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-22
Updated: 2020-04-22
Packaged: 2021-03-01 22:34:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,799
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23784796
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Iris_C/pseuds/anticlockwise
Summary: Mai gets bored, goes into town for some midnight tea and finds something spicier. Ba Sing Se  Zuko zen tea era.
Relationships: Mai/Zuko (Avatar)
Comments: 5
Kudos: 98





	Peppercorn

Mai was bored, so she resorted to some good old night frolicking. Ty Lee had already fallen asleep in the next room. This she knew, because unless Ty Lee was on duty, she was usually in bed by nine, asleep by nine-thirty, and didn’t wake up until nine the next morning. Some people were blessed like that. 

What did the woman say? “All those mid-air somersaults and perfect landings have to come from somewhere!” 

It wasn’t like Mai had insomnia or something stupid like that. There was no such thing as insomnia, especially after a hard day of scaling atop columns and ceilings spying on the Dai Li for Azula. Mai just thought it was stupid to be bored in Ba Sing Se, a city that bragged about being the “biggest,” “bestest” or stuff like “impossible to penetrate.” 

None of those words meant anything to her except to say somebody had a big ego and bad eye for colors. It was bad enough that a place with a palette of green, yellow, and well, more dirt yellow would think it had any bragging rights, but at the very least, maybe “biggest” meant there would be enough room for her to run around. The very idea that she couldn’t even take a walk outside their lavish compound without risking having her identity revealed did make things more… intriguing. 

So after spending an hour bath i.e. scrubbing her face clean of that awful Kyoshi Warrior face paint, getting into her pajamas, slipping into bed, not sleeping, frowning her way out of bed, staring at her reflection in the mirror, Mai sighed and laid out the book “Earth Kingdom Fashions” that Ty Lee had snatched from god-knows-where and opened it. 

Luckily, she didn’t have to do much to alter the Kyoshi Warrior robes. The renegade island of the Earth Kingdom sadly didn’t update their colors when they could. After removing the armor and metal headdress, it camouflaged easily in the dark, and passed off as robes a civilian might wear. The problem, as illustrated by the book, was the hair and makeup. The makeup was just awful. Too pasty. Too much blush. Too heavy on the eyeliner. The headdress was even more ridiculous, its very existence as if to keep women dainty and useless. 

Good thing she wasn’t going to find her fun in the noble quarters. So Mai skipped the makeup, put on her Kyoshi robes sans armor, secured her long hair into her ‘do. Then out the window she went for dramatic effect, breathing the air of freedom. 

She checked for Ty Lee from the roof of their courtyard home, feeling slightly guilty that after days of being coaxed to sneak out for a night out in town, here she was, sneaking out on her own. These things couldn’t be helped though. Sometimes you just go to bed with a tingle at your feet, and all you can do is move to stomp it out. Mai used to get this feeling back at Caldera, and there too, she'd run into the city in the middle of the night, going nowhere and anywhere, until her feet worn out and she could sleep. She doesn’t remember what triggered these night runs of hers, or at what point they started. She was otherwise a fairly sedentary person. She silently promised Ty Lee if the tingle came again, she’d go with her. 

Ba Sing Se was a lot bigger and stranger than Caldera, but Mai still ran fast, scaled the roofs, then grounds in a blur that required of assassin warrior types. The impenetrable city turned out to be porous on the inside, and she covered the dull upper ring and ducked loose security quickly. The whole place seemed to have fallen asleep with its government buildings, municipalities and courtly mansions. Maybe the aristocracy mingled behind closed doors. The middle ring was more alive with fancy lights and bright restaurants, but she didn’t slow down until she got to the lower ring, because there the lights lit up the narrow streets, and people swarmed street vendors, bars, and all kinds of hole in the walls as if it were daytime. 

Mai stopped because her feet were finally getting tired, and she wanted to see people. Boo hoo. Being Azula’s lackey was hard work. They were often in the wilderness, chasing the Avatar’s beast on their own beasts, sleeping on their makeshift sleeping packs. Mai missed humans she didn’t know, she missed that beside megalomaniac teenage princesses, hyperactive lethal acrobats, bald-headed little boys who survived living in an ice ball, there were also boring, normal people. Grimy looking normal people carrying on with their lives not giving a damn about the larger politics of the world until it breathed down their neck and by then it was too late. 

Of course, that didn’t mean she was going to interact with them, or sit near them in these open aired, greasy joints with moths circling the low lights. Instead, she found a classy joint named The Jasmine Dragon, a bar presumably, and she was set on ordering whiskey on the rocks when she realized it was a tea house. A tea house that was open close to midnight, and not to mention, with actual business, judging from full tables of clientele. 

Mai was into it already when she dropped herself into an empty seat in a corner table, and nearly choked on her own saliva when she saw Zuko walking toward her and asked. “Hey what can I get you?” 

At least, her first instinct was that it was Zuko. The scar was a give away. She hadn’t seen it in person, but Azula had shoved a wanted poster at her and Ty Lee and all she saw was this stain of terrible red and she almost almost flinched. She stared at the scar now, but unlike the brightly illustrated poster, the texture of the scar, with its ugly worn leathery quality and dull color, confused her. As if to tame that confusion, she made a strangled sort of noise to swallow her own saliva and meet her gaze in his good eye. In the millisecond of that stare, she couldn’t make out a flicker of recognition of her in his eyes. There was no easy scar on her face for that sort of thing, and the years must have erased any other familiar markers. Frankly, Mai wasn’t sure he would recognize her even if she had her name tattooed on her forehead. That about summed up the history of their relationship and she almost laughed when she said in all seriousness. “Whiskey, on the rocks.” 

To which “Zuko" raised his good eyebrow, then pointed at a large hanging wooden board near the front, “Uh, we’re a tea house. Those are our specials right now, but there’s a more extensive list in the menu there,” he placed an elegant menu in front of her. 

When she made another incoherent noise and he became alarmed because at that moment she jumped up, pushed her face right up to his scar, lifted her hand and almost touched it before he had to sputter and step back, “Oookay, I’ll give you a few minutes then.” 

She sat down cooly after that. It was him. She knew it. And conveniently, he doesn’t recognize her. Now what to do? She’d focused her eyes now on the menu, flipping through it listlessly. It was useless trying to conveniently forget that Zuko wasn’t one of Azula’s many targets — high amongst the take down of Ba Sing Se, capturing the Avatar, and what else? World domination and bringing plebeians to their knees or something? It was hopeless to also convince herself that she hadn’t seen him. His hair was different, and he looked a little disgruntled and uncomfortable, but all in all it was still him. She only spent much of her young, uncomplicated adolescent life staring at him from shadowy corners, and Mai was great at staring before she became great at throwing knives, because half of being good at throwing knives was knowing your target. It took all her effort to tear her eyes away from his back and refocus on the menu in her hands. 

The menu turned out to be a great work of art, with teas divided by region with precise descriptions. Mai was only glossing it over until she realized the descriptions of each tea were written in incredibly witty poetry, and she was so absorbed reading each one and not laughing to herself when a muddy drink was placed in front of her. Above it was Zuko who was looking at her sheepishly. “Hey, I’m really sorry, we’re actually closing soon… and you’ve been reading the menu for a while. This is on the house,” he gestured at the glass. “It’s not whiskey but it’s our best pu’er.” 

“I’ll pay for it,” Mai said smoothly and reached for her purse, only to freeze in mid-motion, realizing she hadn’t had to carry any money on her being an esteemed guest of the Earth Kingdom. She smacked her forehead dully, “On second thought,” she raised the cup warily with both hands, “thanks.” 

Zuko nodded with what she thought was a small, pleased smile. She took a sip of her drink, a strong musky pu’er and couldn’t help but to sigh in appreciation. It was brown and tasted like the earth on a dewy morning with a circle of trees dancing in the wind. 

“Sure, my partner will be pleased his poetry finally found an audience.” 

Mai was still in her reverie, and decidedly undecided about what to do with the Zuko situation, when she heard raucous laughter from the front of shop. She lifted her eyes and followed Zuko’s gaze and saw the Dragon of the West, General Iroh himself, a bit more plump than before but also certainly the same man. She hurried to not meet his gaze, put down her cup and move briskly out the door. 

So this was definitely Zuko. Lower ring, the Jasmine Dragon, she reminded herself. Somehow Iroh and Zuko have set up shop in an alternative life in Ba Sing Se. She’ll have to give herself another night to decide what to do with this information. She was honestly a good distance away when she felt a hand her shoulder and instinctually whipped around and had definitely Zuko in an armlock. 

There was surprise in his grimace, and she immediately loosened her grip as they untangled themselves in what felt like a strange dance, but her eyes were narrow and irritated when she spat, “What do you want?” Grown up Zuko was so close, but she didn’t feel like processing this right now. 

“I saw that you left, and—“ 

“I thought you said it was on the house,” Mai interrupted. 

“What, the tea? Yeah don’t worry. That is certainly on the house. It’s just, you don’t have any money on you, and by the way you’re dressed, you don’t look like you’re from these parts, I just, if you want,” and here his sheepish turned determined, “I’ll be happy to escort you home safely.” 

Well, flamin’ spicy fire flakes. Who knew that the goody-goody Prince in exile himself, cursed to reclaim his honor and return to his rightful place blah and blah, had turned into skirt-chasing rascal. 

“Trust me, I don’t need protection.” 

He nodded in agreement. “I don’t doubt it, but you aren’t from these parts, are you?” 

“Are you?” 

“Point taken. I guess it’s like they say, everyone comes from somewhere else in Ba Sing Se.” 

“Is that what they say?” 

“No, I just made that up,” Zuko deflated. 

Mai inflated. “Well, do you have to close up shop or you can walk now?” 

Zuko looked genuinely surprised. “Oh, um, I can walk. My unc-, I mean partner shouldn’t be too worried,” he said, then not a second later, “actually let me just let him know so he doesn’t get worried, I mean, overwhelmed. Wait here—," he dashed away in the earnest, and was back quickly before she could dully decide whether to run away. She decided he was a swirl of motions and fun to watch. 

Then they were walking side by side, matching in their stride. Zuko may have grown in the three years, but so had she. She saw that they were almost shoulder to shoulder, and that their shadows casted long, thin columns in the remarkably quieter street. He asked her where she lived, and she pointed in the general direction of where she thought the upper ring was. 

She wasn’t sure about this Zuko who picked up his customers. It didn’t exactly fit with her memories of him. Sure, those memories consisted mostly of sneaking looks from afar, and assigning cheesy labels like “honorable” and “gallant” and princely” to a boy she couldn’t meet in the eye, and honestly didn’t know at all. 

Well, that boy was now charming strangers into long walks in the night, or at least, that was what Mai thought was happening. Except he wasn’t exactly slick after boldly asking to escort her home. Now they walked mostly in silence, and Mai could almost feel the turbulence in his attempt at trying to get words out. 

“What is it?” she turned to look at him. She found that years later, she could look at him straight in his good eye up close, but he still didn’t know who she was. That was sad, wasn’t it?” 

“Um, what?” 

“I can feel you make faces, like you want to say something, so say it.” 

“You can feel I’m making faces…?” 

“More or less,” only now did she realize they were standing in front of a fountain and rows of lights in what some might call a romantic backdrop only because they were in such a god-forsaken place. 

“Look, this is going to sound insane, but…” 

“No it won’t, I’m all about lunacy,” Mai shrugged. She braced for it and already started calculating the 102 scenarios that their lives could unfold here on out if he did recognize her. 57 of which ended up with one of them bleeding on the ground right there and then. 

“I met a girl recently, who I didn’t know at all, who told me she liked me… in so many words, and I thought that was nice, to get a feeling about a stranger, and do something about it. I just thought, how many moments do we have in a day, and we just, let those feelings wash over ourselves and let them go.” 

Nope. “Are you trying to pick me up in an extremely weird way involving another’s woman’s confession for you?” 

“I’m not sure. It’s just when you almost… touched my scar back there. You smelled like something.” 

Lunacy had its limits, and as far as picking up women, Zuko’s game was wack. “I smell?” 

Zuko scrunched up his face and looked miserable. “No. You smell good! Really really good! It’s just that, you smell like peppercorn.” 

They’d been served with incredibly bland food at their compound until Azula screamed to just put more seasoning and spices into everything, especially peppercorn! Which confused the chefs because that was decidedly rare and not popular in Earth Kingdom. Did her breath smell like mapo tofu or sliced beef and ox tongue in chili sauce? Her mother would disown her. She suddenly felt as faint and numb and buzzy as the spice. 

“I swear it’s good,” Zuko continued to try to save himself. “I mean who doesn’t love peppercorn. It’s… hot, or well, more like fragrant with a hint of bitter citrus, with a numbing effect on the lips and tongue, which opens up the taste buds to all sorts of other...interesting sensations…” 

That was when Mai placed her entire hand on his mouth. “It’s much better when you don’t go on in long sentences.” 

“…It smells like home,” he finished in a muffled voice behind her hand. 

“And where is home?” She asked calmly. 

He stared at her and shook his head weakly. 

“Right, it’s much better when you don’t talk at all,” said Mai, and that was when she removed her hand and crushed her own mouth onto his, until her lips and tongue became bruised and numb enmeshed in his and that gave way to all sorts of interesting sensations, until she pushed him away and had her back to him when she said.

“For what it’s worth lover boy, you look like you are home.” 

Before he could get his bearings, she was already gone, leapt into the night from the lower ring, to middle, to upper, and finally back in her bed with a small, pleased sort of smile on her face.


End file.
